About Me

I received my MA in philosophy of science many years ago and currently reviving my academic interests. I hope to stimulate individuals in the realms of science, philosophy and the arts...to provide as much free information as possible.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Existential dilemma...swine flu vaccine

The swine flu vaccine has come under considerable scrutiny resulting in long lines for vaccination to those that choose to ride the wave and distrust the pharmacology and employ common sense. It is truly an existential dilemma.

"Swine flu: The return of existential decision-making"

by

Steve Bowles

October 27th, 2009

Pohjolan Sanomat

After so many years of so many following this or that official version of the truth now we face our existential dilemma. Let us all face it. There is no big certainty here and there is no one answer for all. Swine flu forces us all back to personal responsibility for our own lives.

More and more research awareness concerning this ”virus” is leading us to the conclusaion that there is no one-way. No one way for all. It will be a combination of selective ”medicines” that will eventually handle this Swine Flu. This seems to be because this Swine Flu itself is no one-thing. This is also because this Swine Flu is not a traditional ”natural” virus. It is an ”artifical man-made” virus born of laboratory experiments mixed with what can only be called ”social-nature”.

The information that we can find about a Swine Flu vaccine is here and it is there. There are many different opinions and there are many different professional perspectives on this Swine Flu issue. Most of us cannot get into the hard scientific evidences. But, you see, most scientific experts are not ready to say in public that all is well with this Swine Flu programme. But that is good science talking here. No certainty and no one-way-for-all and what it will need is a longer time to research into the goods and the bads for this Swine Flu vaccine.

Today we must accept this humbleness of science. Today we must accept again that existential dilemma of decision-making with life. That is with a life is that bigger than us ourselves and much more varied. We are even thrown into the moral dimensions of health and life itself.

The best in the media struggle to give a balanced story and end up with huge problems of the very philosophy of science itself. But the best of the media do try. The worst of the media plays fear-games or official political-propaganda-games. The scientific research papers speak in a language that is just about unknown to everyday folk. The business stories can only be found through the legal sytems and their lawyers and we find that the big Pharma companies have moved to protect themselves against litigation.

We may read this report or that report from the media saying this or that. But I am sorry. We cannot escape the fact that this is our own time to make personal decisions. Swine Flu forces us into personal decision-making today.

If you read enough different media comments you will only find far too many different stories. This is nothing against the media problems concerning ”truth” here. This is really about making your own bed and then sleeping in it. This home-made bed is that Swine of existential existence. Sorry but you are all on your own with this one. This is YOUR STORY NOW.

So many media reports, even when they try and help us, get involved in fear-making or marketing or even selling this or that way to heaven. Some media try their best to report for the public good. Other media just try to sell newspapers through fear and scandal. It is up to the reader here to see just what is to be believed. From the internet I guess that about two days of continuous research would be necessary if any of us would feel able to make a reasonable judgement. My head is spinning that is for certain and that is the only certainty that I have right now.

From governments we still wait for honest human opinion and advice. Few politicians feel safe to really speak out on this matter. Yet at the same time national projects are agreed. It is no wonder that so many folk feel that they will be used as a test-case. But test-case this is. The studies are really beginning now. But which politician will be strong enough to say ”Too late” we are too late on this one. This Swine Flu has been concocted many years ago already. Strange that Mexico is the home of so many Pharmo companies but a real link remains to be proven here.

From big business we must beware and take care here. It seems that big business has already taken out an insurance policy that denies anybody the right to make legal claims in any big way. If something goes wrong with the Swine Flu vaccines then it might be very difficult today for people to sue the company involved or even make a legal claim. It seems to be that the big business companies have already started to protect themselves. Why would this be so, people ask. Why if this vaccine is safe and well tested?

To make business more suspicious we find the financial markets are waiting now for the next financial results, due for the next quarter, when the investment risks for these big Pharma companies can be best analysed. Swine Flu vacines are today big financial news and if you want to sense the safety of all this then keep watching the financial reports.

You see money talks. What is the truth of this money talking? Can it be that a few political decisions have been made through this (un)insurable-uncertainty of big business? This is not conspiracy from internet bloggers. In some cases it seems that the big business has already moved to protect itself from public claims. Could this be under the law of the land? The real details are difficult to find here. But I do know that the big drug companies have already protected their huge investment and I do know that this information is difficult to ”get at”.

For Doctors and nurses? This must be one of the most difficult issues. Doctors and nurses are ”at-risk” themselves. Doctors and nurses are also seen as responsible for this Swine Flu project. Would you be a doctor or a nurse in this situation. As far as I can tell we can only take advice from the hospital professionals and then make the final decision ourselves. I have the strong feeling today that if we say yes to this vacination and then things go wrong then we can only blame ourselves. This today is our moral and existential adventure. We cannot blame normal hospital workers.

After checking out over 20 polls I find that in most areas there are between 40 % and 60 % that hold a deep suspicion of this Swine Flu vacination project. This means that it is usually a minority that really trust this project for vacination. Many admit that they do not know.

What concerns many is that the causes of this whole Swine Flu episode are almost ignored. The public do need to know more about the ways that this Swine Flu actually was made. That is we need to know the cause so we can begin to treat the causal problem itself.

Many debates continue today whereby Swine Flu vacines are made through the same systems that actually caused Swine Flu in the first place. I find these debates fertile (this debate is not the same as for Sall Pox) and I find this ongoing debate to be at the heart of this pandemonium.

For us as everyday folk we may know more about all this in a few years but until that time we are thrown back into time. We are thrown back into making our own existential decisions for life itself. There are no big certainties available. There are not even any decent risk-analysis studies made as yet to guide us. Morality is the adventure of life itself is it not?

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Poet colleague

Annus mirabilis-1905 March is a time of transition winter and spring commence their struggle between moments of ice and mud a robin appears heralding the inevitable life stumbling from its slumber it was in such a period of change in 1905 that the House of Physics would see its Newtonian axioms of an ordered universe collapse into a new frontier where the divisions of time and space matter and energy were to blend as rain and wind in a storm that broke loose within the mind of Albert Einstein where Brownian motion danced seen and unseen, a random walk that became his papers marching through science reshaping the very fabric of the universe we have come to know we all share a common ancestor a star long lost in the eons of memory and yet in that commonality nature demands a permutation a perchance genetic roll of the dice which births a new vision lifting us temporarily from the mystery exposing some of the roots to our existence only to raise a plethora of more questions as did the papers of Einstein in 1905